Hi! I'm back, and I have another chapter of my wonderful story for you! Isn't it wonderful? Okay, if this chapter isn't up to par, I'm very sorry. I'm just in a really bad mood because of school. It's only the third week and already they're stressing us out. Anyway, I think I need to explain a couple things that I neglected in the previous chapter. Raven doesn't realize it yet, but she's annoyed that Robin interrupted her and Red X on the roof. Well, she knows she's annoyed about it, but it hasn't clicked yet that she wanted to be around X and that that is bad, in her mind. So her subconscious was punishing him for messing up something she doesn't even realized has happened yet. Confusing, but you'll get it later. And hopefully you know who the guys in the dream are. While most of my stories will have Robin with green eyes if they are mentioned, I thought that I'd go with blue because that puts more of a contrast between him and X than the green would. I'll tell who won my contest thingy from last chapter and what their prize is at the end of this chapter. Okay, I think that's it. On with the story!

When One Door Closes

Chapter Two

Everyone is different. Some people have short hair, while others boast long, waist-length tresses. There are those who are happy with their jobs, and those that dread the coming of each day because with it comes the thought of the job you only have to pay the bills. Certain people in this world know what they want, but this same world houses those that know nothing of what their goals in life are. Raven, resident bookworm of Titans' Tower, had always known exactly what she wanted. But, unfortunately for her, that was about to change.

Though she still thought she knew and had control over what she desired, Raven was in for a rude awakening of the worst kind. No one enjoys being proven wrong, and it's even worse to be countered by someone you consider your enemy. She was no exception. But the time for her to realize out she had been beguiled by a certain acquaintance was later. For the moment, Raven still believes to be above such petty things as emotional attachments, and therefore her anger with both herself and her charmer is yet to be seen.

Sadly for the gothic recluse, Raven was in for another, more immediate awakening that was not so much figurative as it was literal. The sonorous pounding on her door serves only to prove this point, as does the following lift of her eyelids. A few seconds of glaring later, Raven stood from her bed and walked over to her door. Of the many thoughts running through her head, one in particular kept repeating itself. There better be a damn good reason for this, or else my visitor is going to get a first-hand view of the seventh layer of hell…

Raven slid her door open, letting her caller get a good view of an irate half-demon. Sadly though, Robin didn't seem very intimidated by her heated glare. He simply shrugged his shoulders and walked past her into the room beyond. This was a shock, and Raven couldn't even find the energy to yell at him for his invasion. She blamed it on just waking up…

"Look, Rae, you know I wouldn't have come in here if I didn't have a good reason," he began.

"And that reason better be explained now, before I send you on a free trip to meet Lucifer." Monotonous, yet threatening, her specialty.

"As much fun as that sounds, I think you want to hear this. I think Red X is back." So much for the threatening part.

"And you know this how?"

"He… uh… Well, we talked this morning," Robin informed her uncomfortably. Raven gulped. If Robin found out that she'd just let him go, she'd be in for it.

"Really? About what?" she questioned.

"His rights, mostly. He said that he'd been granted an amnesty of sorts by one of the Titans and that if I wanted to keep this job, I'd leave him alone. He seemed rather adamant that he wouldn't be doing anything criminal. I don't know if we can trust him, but right now we don't have a choice. Do you think you could keep this from the others? I don't know who gave him this reprieve, but I'd like to find out, and I can't do that if they're constantly nagging about it. I need to see who looks guilty without saying anything about it directly to them."

"Um, okay, I guess. Wait, when did you talk to him?" she said nervously.

"This morning. The asshole woke me up. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten up before you. It's just six thirty now."

Raven groaned and threw herself on her bed, landing with a thump. She could almost hear it when Robin's eyes popped out of socket. That wasn't normal Raven behavior. Then again, he didn't usually wake her up at six in the morning.

"Alright, I'll help. Now go away, you woke me up, in case you didn't notice," she told him. Her voice was slightly muffled from lying face down on her bed.

"Um… okay, I'll be going then. Bye, Rae," he said as he walked out of her room. She didn't know it, but she'd just given him a good view of her backside, and he certainly didn't mind. While he did feel slightly guilty about thinking things like that about a teammate, it didn't stop him from visualizing her in a few… choice outfits… As her door slid shut behind him, he shook his head a bit. She probably didn't even know about all the make fans she had in the city. He walked down the hall, still thinking. He knew she didn't read her fan mail; he saw her stick all the unopened envelopes into the paper shredder. Then again, maybe she didn't care. She didn't exactly react as well as Star did when she received catcalls in the street. Most of the time, she ended up making something explode just to scare the guy off. The Boy Wonder was starting to wonder himself if she even knew she was gorgeous…

An hour later found Red X sitting quietly on Raven's floor, waiting for her to wake up. Though it would probably be hazardous to his health when she did, he was starting to get a little impatient. How long did this girl need to sleep, for Christ's sake? He knew she had been woken by a certain color-blind teen for a conversation she probably didn't enjoy, but she still ought to be getting up soon. With a sigh, he leaned back until he was lying down on her floor. He figured he'd just have to wait a little longer. Fortunately for him (or maybe unfortunately), he didn't wait long.

"Exactly how long have you been in here?" So she was awake. Time to get this show rolling…

"Nice to see you too, honey."

"Call me that again, and you'll be eating out of a straw for the rest of your natural born life."

"Aren't you just a bucket of sunshine in the morning?"

"Have you never heard anyone call me the Ice Queen?"

"Oh, I've heard 'em call you a hell of a lot more than that, sexy." This comment earned him a groan as she turned over and buried herself in her pillow.

"Back to square one," Raven mumbled.

"Really? Well then I guess I'll just start over. Hello, starshine," he intoned in a mocking voice.

"Just shut up and go away. Robin will kill me if he finds out I let you stay in Jump," she said.

He chuckled. "Then just don't let him find out that you're the traitor."

"I am not a traitor!" she hissed as she sat up.

"I know. I just wanted to have your attention. You wouldn't mind trying to convince Wonder Bread that I'm harmless, would you?" he asked innocently.

"I usually try not to lie."

"Come on, just make him realize that I'm not up to no good this time. If anyone can do it, it'd be you," he whined.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she grumbled.

"Nothing, just that you probably have more sway over him than anyone else here," he said quickly.

"Uh-huh, yeah right. And why would you think that?" Her tone was one of obvious skepticism. It only made him want to prove her wrong even more.

Red X cocked an eyebrow at her. "Are you blind or something? All you'd have to do is flash him a little thigh, and he'd do anything you asked."

Raven almost choked when she finally realized what he said. "Are you out of your mind? I can't do that. I won't do that! End of story. Now get out of my room. This discussion is over."

"Fine, but I'll be back," he informed her with a sigh. Then he walked over to her window, threw it open, and jumped out. By the time she ran over there and looked down, he was gone. She turned away from the window, grumbling loudly.

"It's too early to deal with this," Raven sighed. Suddenly her alarm went off. Looking at it, she realized that there must have been a power flicker the night before during the storm. It was flashing 6:00, the flashing meaning that it had been turned off and the time hadn't been reset. She remembered setting her alarm for 6:00 am before she had gone out on the roof, but she must have forgotten to turn it off when she got back. Well, it's a little late for that now, she scolded herself mentally. With a flick of her powers, the machine was silenced, and Raven began to change clothes and make her way downstairs.

When she got to the kitchen, she was not surprised to see that Robin was the only one besides herself that had gotten up. He was sitting at the table flipping through the news paper with a scowl etched onto his face, sipping some kind of brown liquid. Raven started to hustle about the kitchen, setting her teapot on the stove to boil and preparing the ingredients for tea. While waiting for the hiss of the kettle, she walked past her leader to sit at the table and noticed what he was drinking. When she had herself situated in her seat, she began to speak.

"Robin, are you drinking coffee?" she questioned incredulously.

He frowned and responded, "Not technically, no. It's a mocha frappichino from Starbucks."

"So it's coffee…"

"Oh, shut up, at least it has chocolate in it."

"Did you just tell me to shut up?"

"As a matter of fact, I did."

"Don't push it, Wonder Bread," she warned, accidentally using the name Red X had called him.

"Are you telling me what to do?"

"As a matter of fact, I am." Great, now she was copying Robin. What next, a Beast Boy line?

"Don't make me hurt you, Rae."

"Don't make me laugh." Oh, even better, a quote from Terra.

"Don't insult me. And your water's boiling," he said as he looked back down at the paper.

"… Huh?" she said.

He smirked and began to speak very slowly, as if to a toddler, "I said, your water is boiling. Or is plain English too much for your overworked brain this morning?"

Raven glared at him and got up to finish making her tea. They sat in silence for a little while before they were joined by Cyborg, who walked in stretching and popping his back noisily.

"Morning, y'all. Sleep good?" he asked with a yawn.

"Hardly," Raven intoned.

"What she said," added Robin.

Cyborg grinned and started to talk. "What, did you two stay up all night?"

"You could say that," responded Raven.

His grin widened. "Y'all wouldn't have happened to be together, would you? 'Cause I thought I heard something, and if you were-" He was interrupted when the coasters they kept on the coffee table began to repeatedly attack him. "All right, all right! I was just joking, Rae. Guess it's the wrong day to piss you off."

"You got that right," she informed him with a glare. Then the ever-growing party became a quartet when Starfire walked in.

"Oh, joyous greetings of the mornings, friends! I do hope that every found their sleep to be well and that we may all partake in the breaking of the fast!" exclaimed the cheerful alien.

"Sure, Star, whatever you say," Robin said distractedly as he continued to read his paper. The giddy girl flashed him one of her hundred-watt smiles and flew into the kitchen to pour herself some Lucky Charms with mustard.

Soon Beast Boy joined the odd group of teens, and the usual pre-breakfast fight broke out. Not wishing to take part in the Meat vs. Tofu debate, Raven quietly slipped off to her room. Finally, she thought, I can be alone. Unfortunately for her, she was mistaken.

"Hello, beautiful." Damn it all to hell, is he ever going to leave me alone?

"I thought I told you to get out, X," she said viciously.

"I did get out. I just came back."

"So I noticed."

"What, you aren't disappointed, are you?" he asked tauntingly.

"You could say that," Raven responded.

"Terribly sorry, love."

"Would you stop calling me names? It's degrading."

"No problem, Rae." She sighed and shook her head.

"Whatever, is there something you want?"

"Perhaps."

"Well, make it quick, because I generally make it a point not to associate with known criminals."

"You never said if you'd help me convince Wonder Bread to leave me alone. I'm still waiting for an answer, you know." If he noticed that she almost started laughing when he mentioned Robin, he didn't show it.

"Don't call him that," Raven rebuked him, "And I don't know if I'm going to help you or not. If the opportunity presents itself, then I will, but only because he'll grill me for letting you stay. But if not, then you're on your own."

"Let me put it this way. If you don't help me, the police may conveniently find out that you know I'm here and you have, in fact, been helping me hide from the rest of the team. How does that sound?"

"To think that I'd thought you were better than that," she said with a sigh.

"I'd say I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not. I excel at not giving a shit. Experience has taught me that interest begets expectation, and expectation begets disappointment, so the key to avoiding disappointment is to avoid interest. A equals B equals C equals A, or whatever. I also don't have a lot of interest in being a good person or a bad person. From what I can tell, either way, you're screwed. Bad people are punished by society's laws, and good people are punished by Murphy's Law. So you see my dilemma," Red X explained to her.

"Great, now you're philosophizing. What next, are you going to be a game show host?"

"Answer me, Raven," he ordered hotly.

"Fine, but only because you used my real name," she agreed heavily.

"I'd use it more, but I don't think you'd like the circumstances," X cockily informed her.

"I don't even want to know," murmured Raven.

"Well, hope you have a good day, babe. I gotta run now." He walked back over to her window, but before he left Raven interrupted him.

"I thought we established that I want to be called by my name," she groaned exasperatedly.

She could almost see the grin across his face. "Ciao, Raven," he called as he leapt from her window. This time, she didn't go to the window to look; she just marched straight over to her dresser and picked up a threatening looking mirror lying on top of it. As she settled into a comfortable position on her bed, she thought, I think it's time I spent a little quality time with myself…

YAY! I finally got the second chapter out! Aren't you happy? Okay, I do realize that it's been a while, but school's been… Well, it's been taking a lot out of me, to say the least. And this was kind of hard to write. I had a couple of ideas in my head, and I wasn't really sure which way to take this. Not to mention the fact that I'm really sick right now. You people are lucky you're getting this. Now be happy, and review.

Oh yeah, the winner of my little contest thingy was Emyreal Melody. You get to pick what I write next. Here are the choices (keep in mind that I have an obsession with Rob/Rae):

Choice A: Raven is in an unsatisfying relationship with Beast Boy. When she goes to Robin for advice, will he let his own feeling get in the way of their friendship? I can't think of a title yet, and I'm pretty sure this is a one-shot.

Choice B: A few years after the Titans disbanded because of a fight concerning Raven, Robin goes out to eat, and wouldn't you know, his waitress just happens to be Raven. After a night spent reminiscing, will he be able to convince that her friends want to see her again? No title yet, and uncertain number of chapters.

Choice C: The Titans are powerless, mostly jobless, and going to college. Raven and Robin have been best friends since grade school. Now they're beginning to discover that certain feelings may be best left hidden. Will she reject him, or will the rest of the gang get her to kiss and make up? It's an AU called 'Wrath, Seduction, and Paradise Lost'. Multi-chapter

Choice D: Raven made a big mistake that caused her to leave the Titans. Now eight years later, she gets rediscovered by more than just the Titans. Will her old friends be able to help her? Will she let them? No title yet, and multi-chapter.

Okay, Empyreal Melody, just tell me in a review which one you want next. It might be a while before I can get it out, but I will get it out eventually. If you don't choose, then I'm just gonna let everyone else vote for which one they want next.

That's all for now, peoples! See ya later!

Ciao

Raven-Angel-of-Darkness